Sunday, November 13, 2016

Grandma, Queen Sugar and ATL Earnestness -- Tuning Into Our Own Images


Foundational Understanding

We know who we are.










I come from a long line of Southern black folk who've long known they are the best they've got.  Not with a haughtiness; but with an acceptance that our humanity is not debatable.  So we cannot address the white man's concerns because the foundational dissonance requires too much work on our parts.  Besides, his dominance requires an acute case of delusional.  So we proceed.  Our focus is our well-being.

Teaching

My mother and father taught us that when so many of Us are not sheltered, fed, free to learn, free to discover, free to travel, free to speak, free to dance, free to pray, free to chat, free to sip, free to lounge, free to soar, then it's not alright and we have to address the immediate need, then turn to the   problem.


My Grandma too, Miss Annie Mae, raised us all to know that in America, what is seen requires sifting.  Sift it thrice to get to what it means to and for Us.  Miss Annie Mae didn't pull no punches.  She hollered for that "cracker to get the hell out" her yard.  She set a perimeter around her place and moved not.

Because ...

Miss Ann near about raised herself, except when under the care of Big Maw and Grandma Fanny.  Her Mama left here early.  Grandma had herself and her baby sister to see about.  Two little brown girls set center the mean wilderness of Depression Era Arkansas -- near about parentless and completely aware.  They woke each morning determined to eat and see about what the other needed.

Grandma dipped her finger in the snow and wiped Mary's face and led her on to the schoolhouse with her.

Memory

("Grandma Fanny worked herbs and blended salves.  Oooh, it smelled so good.  We could't hardly go to the doctor then, Ta Lee.")

Grandma watched her tv programs.  She'd slip into her sparkly house shoes and flicked on the Today Show.  She took her spot in her couch corner and commenced to fuss them all, Barbara, Hugh, Tom, Jane, Bryant.  From this, I learned the quick-fire effectiveness of a rightly strewn,  bastard.  "They lie all day long, Ta.  And then just keep saying the same mess all day to make it true."  Grandma yearned for less American-branded top stories and more telling-the-truth over a broader band.  With four channels, the one clear lie was one clear lie.  Grandma shook her head a lot.

Grandma consistently fell on the alternate side of the forwarded angle.  (She knew that men who could legalize the raping of children and who exchanged all our grandmothers for bags of tobacco had mastered the art of self-delusion).

Grandma knew, like so many of us know, that the consumption of the tv news lie required her to be mesmerized by the Westinghouse, General Electric and Walt Disney sponsored voices selling her their dangers and then selling her their products.  Grandma refused because she never forgot.  She retained the memory of her hunger and everyone who turned away from it.  Memory of the men who sell children and invite their children to watch others perish.

She read books besides.  Stacks of books over and over and over.

She cussed at the tv news, played along with the Price is Right, then shut them down to indulge her imagination with her thousands of books.

Grandma imagined.  She beat them all back with her quiet indulgence.  Her books kept her tethered to the possible and protected her from the flashing, doping all-day images that men who can legalize the rape of children require to keep so many of us looking the other way.  


Ten more black bodies hanging on a wire.  Three more inches of that virginal Brazilian silky grafted onto corseted waists.  Bare black thighs, raging toward cannibalism in their hunger to just be ______.  We are black women.  You cannot slut shame us.  We know who we are.  We don't need to get naked to define our freedom.  We get naked for love and food when necessary.  Or at least we used to.  We know who we are.

Turning Inward

This year two African-American centered shows appeared in alignment with this idea: that we must center, manage, and project our own images, imaginations, circles, and finances.  ATL and Queen Sugar.  Earnest is at the center of both shows.

In Queen Sugar, the family patriarch, Earnest B. dies and leaves his family with the task of returning to the land they own, working it and in turn facing themselves, their challenges and their personal histories.  In ATL, the show's central character, Earn, after leaving Princeton (for an unannounced reason), comes home to Atlanta to raise his daughter and work with his cousin in building a music career.  Both shows are written and produced by and for black people.  Obviously.  Neither show sanitizes away the difficulties or the complexity, neither do they shy from solution.  The imagery in both shows is as elegantly sure as the pure green corn fanning the cars cruising along Vaugine Road.  

The content is just as sure.  Every step toward a romantic ending is met with an obstacle, each a newly discovered something.  The answers come when they confront the ugly truth and weep.  Then they take an unexpected path.  Adjust.  And work it.

Our work is with us.  It is with our children, the images coming at us and them.  We have to turn the noise off sometimes and be still and sift into what applies, three times if necessary.

The coming disruptions must be multi-pronged, but singularly focused.  If we accepted, like my Grandma accepted, that men who could make it legal to rape children, are neither interested nor able to change, then what is the logical next step?  If the women who love them, enable their rape of the entire world, including Us, then what is the next logical step?  Our children need food, shelter, jobs and images that validate who they are. They need to know they are our priority. That we are our priority.

Like the homeless man in the parking lot shouted to Van as she protested Earn letting him valet their car, "We all we got." And we got a lot.




Grandma, Queen Sugar and ATL Earnestness -- Tuning Into Our Own Images


Foundational Understanding

We know who we are.










I come from a long line of Southern black folk who've long known they are the best they've got.  Not with a haughtiness; but with an acceptance that our humanity is not debatable.  So we cannot address the white man's concerns because the foundational dissonance requires too much work on our parts.  Besides, his dominance requires an acute case of delusional.  So we proceed.  Our focus is our well-being.

Teaching

My mother and father taught us that when so many of Us are not sheltered, fed, free to learn, free to discover, free to travel, free to speak, free to dance, free to pray, free to chat, free to sip, free to lounge, free to soar, then it's not alright and we have to address the immediate need, then turn to the   problem.


My Grandma too, Miss Annie Mae, raised us all to know that in America, what is seen requires sifting.  Sift it thrice to get to what it means to and for Us.  Miss Annie Mae didn't pull no punches.  She hollered for that "cracker to get the hell out" her yard.  She set a perimeter around her place and moved not.

Because ...

Miss Ann near about raised herself, except when under the care of Big Maw and Grandma Fanny.  Her Mama left here early.  Grandma had herself and her baby sister to see about.  Two little brown girls set center the mean wilderness of Depression Era Arkansas -- near about parentless and completely aware.  They woke each morning determined to eat and see about what the other needed.

Grandma dipped her finger in the snow and wiped Mary's face and led her on to the schoolhouse with her.

Memory

("Grandma Fanny worked herbs and blended salves.  Oooh, it smelled so good.  We could't hardly go to the doctor then, Ta Lee.")

Grandma watched her tv programs.  She'd slip into her sparkly house shoes and flicked on the Today Show.  She took her spot in her couch corner and commenced to fuss them all, Barbara, Hugh, Tom, Jane, Bryant.  From this, I learned the quick-fire effectiveness of a rightly strewn,  bastard.  "They lie all day long, Ta.  And then just keep saying the same mess all day to make it true."  Grandma yearned for less American-branded top stories and more telling-the-truth over a broader band.  With four channels, the one clear lie was one clear lie.  Grandma shook her head a lot.

Grandma consistently fell on the alternate side of the forwarded angle.  (She knew that men who could legalize the raping of children and who exchanged all our grandmothers for bags of tobacco had mastered the art of self-delusion).

Grandma knew, like so many of us know, that the consumption of the tv news lie required her to be mesmerized by the Westinghouse, General Electric and Walt Disney sponsored voices selling her their dangers and then selling her their products.  Grandma refused because she never forgot.  She retained the memory of her hunger and everyone who turned away from it.  Memory of the men who sell children and invite their children to watch others perish.

She read books besides.  Stacks of books over and over and over.

She cussed at the tv news, played along with the Price is Right, then shut them down to indulge her imagination with her thousands of books.

Grandma imagined.  She beat them all back with her quiet indulgence.  Her books kept her tethered to the possible and protected her from the flashing, doping all-day images that men who can legalize the rape of children require to keep so many of us looking the other way.  


Ten more black bodies hanging on a wire.  Three more inches of that virginal Brazilian silky grafted onto corseted waists.  Bare black thighs, raging toward cannibalism in their hunger to just be ______.  We are black women.  You cannot slut shame us.  We know who we are.  We don't need to get naked to define our freedom.  We get naked for love and food when necessary.  Or at least we used to.  We know who we are.

Turning Inward

This year two African-American centered shows appeared in alignment with this idea: that we must center, manage, and project our own images, imaginations, circles, and finances.  ATL and Queen Sugar.  Earnest is at the center of both shows.

In Queen Sugar, the family patriarch, Earnest B. dies and leaves his family with the task of returning to the land they own, working it and in turn facing themselves, their challenges and their personal histories.  In ATL, the show's central character, Earn, after leaving Princeton (for an unannounced reason), comes home to Atlanta to raise his daughter and work with his cousin in building a music career.  Both shows are written and produced by and for black people.  Obviously.  Neither show sanitizes away the difficulties or the complexity, neither do they shy from solution.  The imagery in both shows is as elegantly sure as the pure green corn fanning the cars cruising along Vaugine Road.  

The content is just as sure.  Every step toward a romantic ending is met with an obstacle, each a newly discovered something.  The answers come when they confront the ugly truth and weep.  Then they take an unexpected path.  Adjust.  And work it.

Our work is with us.  It is with our children, the images coming at us and them.  We have to turn the noise off sometimes and be still and sift into what applies, three times if necessary.

The coming disruptions must be multi-pronged, but singularly focused.  If we accepted, like my Grandma accepted, that men who could make it legal to rape children, are neither interested nor able to change, then what is the logical next step?  If the women who love them, enable their rape of the entire world, including Us, then what is the next logical step?  Our children need food, shelter, jobs and images that validate who they are. They need to know they are our priority. That we are our priority.

Like the homeless man in the parking lot shouted to Van as she protested Earn letting him valet their car, "We all we got." And we got a lot.




Grandma, Queen Sugar and ATL Earnestness -- Tuning Into Our Own Images


Foundational Understanding

We know who we are.








Ethos

I come from a long line of Southern black folk who've long known they are the best they've got.  Not with a haughtiness; but with an acceptance that our humanity is not debatable.  So we cannot address the white man's concerns because the foundational dissonance requires too much work on our parts.  Besides, his dominance requires an acute case of delusional.  So we proceed.  Our focus is our well-being.

Teaching

My mother and father taught us that when so many of Us are not sheltered, fed, free to learn, free to discover, free to travel, free to speak, free to dance, free to pray, free to chat, free to sip, free to lounge, free to soar, then it's not alright and we have to address the immediate need, then turn to the   problem.


My Grandma too, Miss Annie Mae, raised us all to know that in America, what is seen requires sifting.  Sift it thrice to get to what it means to and for Us.  Miss Annie Mae didn't pull no punches.  She hollered for that "cracker to get the hell out" her yard.  She set a perimeter around her place and moved not.

Because ...

Miss Ann near about raised herself, except when under the care of Big Maw and Grandma Fanny.  Her Mama left here early.  Grandma had herself and her baby sister to see about.  Two little brown girls set center the mean wilderness of Depression Era Arkansas -- near about parentless and completely aware.  They woke each morning determined to eat and see about what the other needed.

Grandma dipped her finger in the snow and wiped Mary's face and led her on to the schoolhouse with her.

Memory

("Grandma Fanny worked herbs and blended salves.  Oooh, it smelled so good.  We could't hardly go to the doctor then, Ta Lee.")

Grandma watched her tv programs.  She'd slip into her sparkly house shoes and flicked on the Today Show.  She took her spot in her couch corner and commenced to fuss them all, Barbara, Hugh, Tom, Jane, Bryant.  From this, I learned the quick-fire effectiveness of a rightly strewn,  bastard.  "They lie all day long, Ta.  And then just keep saying the same mess all day to make it true."  Grandma yearned for less American-branded top stories and more telling-the-truth over a broader band.  With four channels, the one clear lie was one clear lie.  Grandma shook her head a lot.

Grandma consistently fell on the alternate side of the forwarded angle.  (She knew that men who could legalize the raping of children and who exchanged all our grandmothers for bags of tobacco had mastered the art of self-delusion).

Grandma knew, like so many of us know, that the consumption of the tv news lie required her to be mesmerized by the Westinghouse, General Electric and Walt Disney sponsored voices selling her their dangers and then selling her their products.  Grandma refused because she never forgot.  She retained the memory of her hunger and everyone who turned away from it.  Memory of the men who sell children and invite their children to watch others perish.

She read books besides.  Stacks of books over and over and over.

She cussed at the tv news, played along with the Price is Right, then shut them down to indulge her imagination with her thousands of books.

Grandma imagined.  She beat them all back with her quiet indulgence.  Her books kept her tethered to the possible and protected her from the flashing, doping all-day images that men who can legalize the rape of children require to keep so many of us looking the other way.  


Ten more black bodies hanging on a wire.  Three more inches of that virginal Brazilian silky grafted onto corseted waists.  Bare black thighs, raging toward cannibalism in their hunger to just be ______.  We are black women.  You cannot slut shame us.  We know who we are.  We don't need to get naked to define our freedom.  We get naked for love and food when necessary.  Or at least we used to.  We know who we are.

Turning Inward

This year two African-American centered shows appeared in alignment with this idea: that we must center, manage, and project our own images, imaginations, circles, and finances.  ATL and Queen Sugar.  Earnest is at the center of both shows.

In Queen Sugar, the family patriarch, Earnest B. dies and leaves his family with the task of returning to the land they own, working it and in turn facing themselves, their challenges and their personal histories.  In ATL, the show's central character, Earn, after leaving Princeton (for an unannounced reason), comes home to Atlanta to raise his daughter and work with his cousin in building a music career.  Both shows are written and produced by and for black people.  Obviously.  Neither show sanitizes away the difficulties or the complexity, neither do they shy from solution.  The imagery in both shows is as elegantly sure as the pure green corn fanning the cars cruising along Vaugine Road.  

The content is just as sure.  Every step toward a romantic ending is met with an obstacle, each a newly discovered something.  The answers come when they confront the ugly truth and weep.  Then they take an unexpected path.  Adjust.  And work it.

Our work is with us.  It is with our children, the images coming at us and them.  We have to turn the noise off sometimes and be still and sift into what applies, three times if necessary.

The coming disruptions must be multi-pronged, but singularly focused.  If we accepted, like my Grandma accepted, that men who could make it legal to rape children, are neither interested nor able to change, then what is the logical next step?  If the women who love them, enable their rape of the entire world, including Us, then what is the next logical step?  Our children need food, shelter, jobs and images that validate who they are. They need to know they are our priority. That we are our priority.

Like the homeless man in the parking lot shouted to Van as she protested Earn letting him valet their car, "We all we got." And we got a lot.




Search This Blog